STUDIO IV graphic novel
1 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
“The world is like the impression left by the telling of a story.” yogavasistha, 2.3.11
Project by Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - 2008 Guide Immanuel Suresh
Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
Introduction ......................................................................................................5 Proposal.............................................................................................................6 Origin and developement of visual story telling .........................................8 Precursors of comics .....................................................................................13 World wars & Art movements ....................................................................15 History of comics ...........................................................................................17 Elements of comics ........................................................................................18 Narrative methods in comics
Content
The transitions ....................................................................................19 Time and space ...................................................................................20 Movement ..........................................................................................21 Word and image .................................................................................22 About Western and Manga .........................................................................23 Comparision between Western and Manga .............................................26 The story .........................................................................................................27 Structuring the story The hero’s journey model ..................................................................28 Treatment ..........................................................................................30 Character design ...........................................................................................32 Space design ...................................................................................................46 Visualizing .......................................................................................................48 Cover ...............................................................................................................54 The final ..........................................................................................................56 Bibliography ....................................................................................................58
graphic novel is more than an illustrated adaptation of work done in another literary form, combining text and image. The basic differences between graphic novel and comics is as described by graphic novel writers, the term graphic novel was coined as a marketing term to separate itself from being categorized with other ‘funnies’ or children’s comic books. The term gained popularity after it was used on the cover of Will Eisners’s “A Contract With God, and Other Tenement Stories”, in 1978.
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PROPOSAL
Objective My objective is to create a graphic novel which would be the product of my collective knowledge and exploration. Context Although now the graphic novel has a certain style and narrative structure which is very distinct and homogeneous and yet successful in the market, the overall language is too monotonous and it is difficult to differentiate one style from the other. So I thought it would be a fruitful exercise to explore alternative narrative techniques both in terms of visual narrative and the text behind it. These alternative directions or cues can be taken from traditional visual narrative sources which have a very different and vivid visual grammar.
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Cover page of Will eishner’s A Contract With God
To understand graphic novel is to understand comics first Comics: plural in form used with a singular verb juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence indented to convey information or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer
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Prehistoric
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPEMENT OF VISUAL STORY TELLING
CAVE PAINTINGS Cave paintings are paintings on cave walls and ceilings, usually dating to prehistoric times. These are the earliest expressions of humans seen in many countries. The earliest known European cave paintings date to 32,000 years ago. The purpose of the cave paintings is not known, and may never be. The evidence suggests that they were not merely decorations of living areas, since the caves in which they have been found do not have signs of ongoing habitation. Also, they are often in areas of caves that aren’t easily accessed. Some theories hold that they may have been a way of transmitting information, while other theories ascribe them a religious or ceremonial purpose. 8
Historic
EGYPTIAN PAINTINGS, HIEROGLYPHS
SUMERIAN CUNEIFORM
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Medieval
BAYEUX TAPESTRY (circa 066) 230 foot long tapestry details the Norman concuest of England
MINIATURE PAINTINGS The subject-matter illustrated on miniature paintings are myths and poetry. Religion and secular literature provided the artists with sources of inspiration. Legends like Vishnu and Krishna are presented as a glorifying incarnation. In the eighteenth century new scenes were introduced. Miniatures are centred around energetic rhythms of hunting, festival celebrations or royal visits to holy men. Love scenes are nowadays a classic. Miniature artists claim they are capable of putting in motion, the breeze which throws aside the vail from the face of the beautiful.
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Gustave Dore
PRINTING AND ILLUSTRATION After printing was invented there began mass production. Now people can afford the copies of expensive paintings for their own During the 15th century, books illustrated with woodcut illustrations became available. The main processes used for reproduction of illustrations during the 16th and 17th centuries were engraving and etching. At the end of the 18th century, lithography allowed even better illustrations to be reproduced. The most notable illustrator of this epoch was William Blake who rendered his illustrations in the medium of relief etching. Till early 20th century was golden period of illustration. After world war these there was other mediums of expression started influencing the world of art. 12
PRECURSORS OF COMICS
Rodolphe Tรถpffer (1799 - 1846) was a Swiss teacher, author, painter, cartoonist, and caricature artist. He is considered to be the father of comics.
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Richard Felton Outcault (18631928) was an American comic strip scriptwriter, sketcher and painter. Outcault was the creator of the series The Yellow Kid and Buster Brown, and is considered the inventor of the modern comic strip.
LYND WARD (1905 - 1985) an American artist and storyteller, and son of Methodist minister and prominent political organizer Harry F. Ward. He illustrated some 200 juvenile and adult books. Ward worked in wood engraving, watercolour, oil, brush and ink, lithography and mezzotint. His word silence woodcut novels are powerful modern fables.
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WORLD WARS & ART MOVEMENTS
In late19th century and early 20th century was the period where the world (mainly Europe) has been undergone into stress and struggle of world wars and science and industrialization. In this period art, philosophy and new mediums of communication like cinema television, radio emerged. Out of that we’ll look at a few things which are mainly connected with our subject. The ideas which is questioned the art philosophy and literature world produced new art movements and radical thoughts. ‘Art and literature as a representation of real world’ seems lost its influence. The art moved out of realism and towards the inner most search of true sprite of human beings. Eventually it is become abstract and distanced from mass. The imagery of comics dept on expressionist movement (Edward munch, Van Gough) Self portrait of Van Gough Top Left: Scream by Edward Munch
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WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866 – 1944) was a Russian painter, printmaker and art theorist. He found interesting effect of basic form on human emotions. The way lines, shapes, forms and colour creates emotions with actually representing anything belongs to the real world is plays major role in visual language.
Can art represent the real world? Apparently it can’t because the picture of a tree can’t be the real tree but it gives the idea of tree. Understanding this will help to articulate how a visual can communicate in certain favorable way. The more simplified the image, the more quick it will get identified by the viewer but this can only possible if the receiver had previous experience. Sometimes association can help to understand an unknown picture of a tree as shown. THE REALISTIC IMAGES AND SIMPLIFIED IMAGES: amplification through simplification
Abstracting an image through cartooning is not eliminating detail but focusing on main details Humans can identify themself easily to simplified images because they are self centered race
This all leads to iconography Extension of self identity MARSHALL McLUHAN 16
End of 19th century & early 20th century
COMICS With the epoch of the world war the comics industry in America started booming. The main players are Jerry Siegel, Jack Liebowitz, Joe Shuster, Harry Donenfeld, Charlie Gaines, Bob Kahn, Stanly Lie ber, Jake Kurzberg, and Mort Weisinger. Most of them are migrated Jews. The stress of world war and their fantasy for tomorrow - their anxiety for science and future, the lack and inability to get along with the real world produced dreams which can sell easily while giving enough food for basic desire over cruel realities of real world.
*Men of tomorrow Geeks gangsters and the birth of comic book – Gerard jones
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ELEMENTS OF COMICS
Panels The images that are usually laid out within borders are known as panels. Panel frames The border or edges of a panel are called frames. The shape can be altered to convey information or emotions to the reader. Bleed Instead of using panel frame sometimes the image has run throughout the pages. This is called bleed. Mostly the bleed is used in cover pages. In Manga these bleeds are sometimes used on internal panel to create the illusion of space or emphasize action. Speech balloon The speech or word balloon is a graphic used to assign ownership of dialogue on a particular character. Through different types of lines and shape the emotion and the sound of the dialogue emphasized. Motion lines Motion lines, also known as “speed lines”, are lines that are used to represent motion. Gutter The gutter is the space between borders. Scott McCloud identified the gutter as one of the most important narrative tools in comics, invoking as it does a procedure McCloud defined as closure. Symbolia Mort Walker defined in his book The Lexicon of Comicana, the iconic representations used within comics and cartooning as “symbolia”. Examples being the lightbulb above a character’s head to indicate an idea. Sound effects Sound effects and enviromental sounds are presented without balloons, in bold or “3D” text in all upper case. 18
NARRATIVE METHODS IN COMICS THE TRANSITIONS Moment to moment
Action to action
Subject to subject
Scene to scene
Aspect to aspect
Non seqitur 19 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
TIME and SPACE Each panel of the page is not equal to a single moment of time Just as pictures and the intervals between them create the illusion of time words introduces time. The habit of photographic understanding of single image single moment often confuse us. The eye moves through the page (space) and also through time. Therefore TIME = SPACE IN COMICS The eye movement creates the time, the panels, content and closure controls the time by directing the eye moment in desirable way. If bleed is used for unresolved content the effect of timelessness is compounded. In real life the present is now but in comics past, present and future is same and everywhere. Viewer participation can be possible like other media like games etc.
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MOVEMENT Late 19th and early 20th century everyone was trying to capture the movement through science. The futurists and Marcel Duchamp tried through systematic decomposition of moving images in static single medium. And motion lines started appearing in comics.
Action lines Multiple images The path line Streaking Motion blur effect Placing moving body against continuous Background Through memory and drama
Marcel duchamp
Few motion technique in comics
SOUND Sound achieved through introducing speech balloons Intradiegetic story layer-speech balloons
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WORD and IMAGE “art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes it visible” - paul klee Comics illustrations has it’s dept with expressionist movement. Wassily Kandinsky’s contribution on lines, colours with human emotions. Few combinations word specific picture specific duo-specific additive parallel montage The perfect balance is important. Comics is not only images or only words.
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WESTERN COMICS
A page from a graphic novel ‘Watchman’
Most of the western or US comics based on action and super heroes. The western comics uses very less varieties of transitions mainly action to action.
MANGA Manga is the Japanese word for comics post world war II US comics entered Japan. But it developed and evolved in different manner than US action comics. They quickly adapted cinematic technique in their comics. Osamu Tezuka who is considered father of Manga gave Manga a unique identity in comics world through his cinematic technique. 23 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
FOUR CONCEPTIONS OF PANEL UTILIZATION BY BENOÎT PEETERS Euro-American comics’ pages are ‘valuable’.
Productive
Conventional The distribution of plates on a page is given and follows a strict pattern. The ‘story’ is dominant and determines the ‘painting’.
Decorative In the decorative layout, not the story, but the painting is dominant. In both types story and painting are independent.
Rhetorical & Productive In rhetorical layout, the story has the upper hand, while the painting dominates in a productive plate setup.In both types story and painting are dependent.
Rhetorical
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Eisner and the virtual frame
Fred, or panicked reading
Crossed readings 25 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
COMPARISON BETWEEN WESTERN AND MANGA ‘iconoclastic tendencies’- western European and American comics usually superimpose on this basic narrative layer an additional textual frame, thus resulting in a double enunciation What you see is not what you get, and what you read is not what you see Usage of four Conceptions of the Page by Benoît Peeters Getting there.
Analytical Montage A Cinematographical Narrative Technique To ‘read’ manga is to read images Manga Speed-reading Less descriptive captions in manga. Absence of ‘textual narrators’ Benoît Peeters conception is not applicable but manga has flexible page layouts. Being there. Cartoony explosion of emotion of the protagonist Manga give sense of silence and timelessness through simultaneous of time
MONTAGE The word montage, in general usage, means the juxtaposition of various images to form a continuous whole. As such the word is indistinct from film editing or from assembling various still images to create a single, composite image. HERBERT ZETTL’S ANALYTICAL MONTAGE selecting the essential elements of an event and synthesizing them into an intensified screen event sequential analytical montage: When you condense an event into its key developmental elements while maintaining their original linear order sectional analytical montage: Temporarily arrests the progression of an event and examines an isolated moment from various viewpoints 26
THE STORY SYNOPSIS The Third Policeman is about a symbolic man who has a scheming attendant, Divney, who in addition to taking care of his decaying property also takes over his decadent life. For want of money to publish some obscure philosophies of a mad scientist, he succumbs to Divney’s greedy plot to murder a rich landowner, Mathers. After committing the murder, by way of escape, he finds himself thrust into the abstract landscapes of a world of distorted dimensions. There he encounters a one-legged accomplice and two bizzare mannered policeman who convince him about absurd metaphysical theories, whereby bicycle and man become parts of each other and eternity is a place you can reach by a lift. By the extenstion of their metaphysics they frame him for Mather’s murder also. He escapes out of it again only to encounter the third policeman, in the form of Mathers who sends him spinning back with his old buddy Divney into yet another unending series of surreal escapades. We are left to infer it as a delirious afterlife cycle, cursed with oblivion.
Flann O’Brien
The Third Policeman is Flann O’Brien’s second novel, written in 1939 and 1940 but not published until 1967, after the author’s death.
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STRUCTURING THE STORY The script was written by the Filmmaker Kamal Swaroop for his motion picture, I used that script for my graphic novel with his permision. According to him, he did the structure of the script based on Joseph Campbell’s formula ‘ the hero’s journey’. Campbell wrote a book called ‘The Hero With A Thousand Faces’, in that book he described the similarity and the patterns of all mythological stories around the world which is given below.
THE HERO’S JOURNEY Act I Departure The Call to Adventure The call to adventure is the point in a person’s life when they are first given notice that everything is going to change, whether they know it or not. Refusal of the Call Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances. Supernatural Aid Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, his or her guide and magical helper appears, or becomes known. The Crossing of the First Threshold This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known. 28
The Belly of the Whale The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. It is sometimes described as the person’s lowest point, but it is actually the point when the person is between or transitioning between worlds and selves. The separation has been made, or is being made, or being fully recognized between the old world and old self and the potential for a new world/self. The experiences that will shape the new world and self will begin shortly, or may be beginning with this experience which is often symbolized by something dark, unknown and frightening. By entering this stage, the person shows their willingness to undergo a metamorphosis, to die to him or herself.
Act II Initiation The Road of Trials The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes. The Meeting with the Goddess The meeting with the goddess represents the point in the adventure when the person experiences a love that has the power and significance of the all-powerful, all encompassing, unconditional love that a fortunate infant may experience with his or her mother. It is also known as the “hieros gamos”, or sacred marriage, the union of opposites, and may take place entirely within the person. In other words, the person begins to see him or herself in a non-dualistic way. This is a very important step in the process and is often represented by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely. Although Campbell symbolizes this step as a meeting with a goddess, unconditional love and /or self unification does not have to be represented by a woman. Woman as the Temptress At one level, this step is about those temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest, which as with the Meeting with the Goddess does not necessarily have to be represented by a woman. For Campbell, however, this step is about the revulsion that the usually male hero may feel about his own fleshy/earthy nature, and the subsequent attachment or projection of that revulsion to women. Woman is a metaphor for the physical or material temptations of life, since the hero-knight was often tempted by lust from his spiritual journey.
Atonement with the Father In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life. In many myths and stories this is the father, or a father figure who has life and death power. This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it. Although this step is most frequently symbolized by an encounter with a male entity, it does not have to be a male; just someone or thing with incredible power. For the transformation to take place, the person as he or she has been must be “killed” so that the new self can come into being. Sometime this killing is literal, and the earthly journey for that character is either over or moves into a different realm. Apotheosis To apotheosize is to deify. When someone dies a physical death, or dies to the self to live in spirit, he or she moves beyond the pairs of opposites to a state of divine knowledge, love, compassion and bliss. This is a god-like state; the person is in heaven and beyond all strife. A more mundane way of looking at this step is that it is a period of rest, peace and fulfillment before the hero begins the return. The Ultimate Boon The ultimate boon is the achievement of the goal of the quest. It is what the person went on the journey to get. All the previous steps serve to prepare and purify the person for this step, since in many myths the boon is something transcendent like the elixir of life itself, or a plant that supplies immortality, or the holy grail.
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Act III Return Refusal of the Return So why, when all has been achieved, the ambrosia has been drunk, and we have conversed with the gods, why come back to normal life with all its cares and woes? The Magic Flight Sometimes the hero must escape with the boon, if it is something that the gods have been jealously guarding. It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it. Rescue from Without Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often times he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience. Or perhaps the person doesn’t realize that it is time to return, that they can return, or that others need their boon. The Crossing of the Return Threshold The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life, and then maybe figure out how to share the wisdom with the rest of the world. This is usually extremely difficult. Master of the Two Worlds In myth, this step is usually represented by a transcendental hero like Jesus or Buddha. For a human hero, it may mean achieving a balance between the material and spiritual. The person has become comfortable and competent in both the inner and outer worlds. Freedom to Live Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live. This is sometimes referred to as living in the moment, neither anticipating the future nor regretting the past.
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Treatment In the ‘Third policeman’, the protagonist is suffering without being aware of it. That is why he couldn’t grow old. He refuses the knowledge because of desire. He can’t hold anything in his mind, so he has to go through his pain again and again. This is the curse cycle. He is weak from the beginning. Weakness is evil. I intend to do the illustration with slow and doubtful lines. Regarding the paper quality, I want to use different kind of paper for the after death sequences.
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CHARACTER DESIGN
NACHIKETA His father was a strong farmer and mother owned a public house. He knew his mother well but his father and he were strangers and did not converse much. His father and mother died when he was too young and foolish and did not know properly why they left him. After a few days he was sent to a boarding school filled with people, some young and some older. His life at this school did not matter except for one thing. It was here that he first came to know something of Atpateshwar. One day he picked up idly an old tattered book in the science master’s study and put it in his pocket to read in bed the next morning. He was about sixteen then. The book was a first edition of Golden Hours with the two last pages missing. By the time he was nineteen and had reached the end of his education he knew that the book was valuable and that in keeping it he was stealing it. It was for Atpateshwar he committed his first serious sin. He did not go home direct from school. He spent some months in other places broadening his mind and finding out about Atpateshwar’s works. He met one night with a bad accident and broke his left leg in six places and when he was well enough again to go his way he had one leg made of wood, the left one.
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At the age of twenty he went back to his home to a rocky farm. He was certain by this time that farming, even if he had to do it, would not be his life work. He knew that if his name was to be remembered, it would be remembered with Atpateshwar’s. A man called Devi Singh working the farm and living on it until he should return. Ref images
Self portriat of Egon Schiele.
CHARACTER PROFILE
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bystander in Pushkar
DEVI SINGH Devi is a strong civil man but he is lazy and idle-minded. He has brown hair and is made handsomely enough in a small way. His shoulders are broadened out with work and his arms are thick like little tree-trunks. He has a quiet civil face with eyes like cow’s eyes, brooding, brown, and patient. After sixteen years Devi has grown enormously fat and his brown hair is gone, leaving him quite bald. His strong face has collapsed to jowls of hanging fat.
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SETH BHAGCHAND
He still did large business through agents and carried no less than three thousand pounds with him every time he hobbled to the village to lodge his money.
Ref pictures from net
He had spent a long life of fifty years in the cattle trade and now lived alone in retirement in a big house three miles away from the village. He has a spent bloodless face peering from the top of the great black coat which covered him from ear to ankle.
B SETH BHAGCHAND AS GHOST He is nearing seventy. The hand is yellow, the wrinkled skin draped loosely upon the bones. Over the knuckle of his forefinger clearly see the loop of a skinny vein. His face was terrifying but his eyes in the middle of it had a quality of chill and horror. The skin is like faded parchment (writing material made of animal skin, paper resembling this) with an arrangement of puckers and wrinkles which creates between them an expression of fathomless inscrutability.The eyes were horrible. They were not genuine eyes at all but mechanical dummies animated by electricity or the like, with a tiny pinhole in the centre of the ‘ pupil’ through which the real eye gazed out secretively and with great coldness. Occasionally the heavy cheese-like lids would drop down slowly with great languor (laziness) and then rise again. Wine color dressing gown wrapped loosely around the body. Sticking plaster or bandage at the left hand side of his neck. Throat and chin are also bandaged. His voice had a peculiar jarring weight like the hoarse toll of an ancient rusty bell in an ivy-smothered tower. His lips hardly move, he has no teeth behind them. 36
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38 Painting by Bacon
He is small and poorly dressed and on his head is a cloth cap of pale salmon colour and wears a ragged trouser. His arms are as strong as an article of powerful steam machinery. He is tricky and smokes a tricky pipe and his hand is quavery. His eyes are tricky and very unusual eyes. There is no palpable divergence in their alignment but they seemed to be incapable of giving a direct glance at anything that was straight and he looks through bushes of hair which are growing about his eyes. His left leg is smooth, shapely and fairly fat but it is made of wood.
Ref pictures from net
YADU BIR (LANGDA)
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BHAIRON SINGH Ordinary enough as each part of him looked by itself, they all seemed to create together, by some undetectable discrepancy in association or proportion. A very disquieting impression of unnaturalness, amounting almost to what was horrible and monstrous. He is very big and fat and the hair which strayed abundantly about the back of his bulging neck are a pale straw-colour. He is having huge back, thick arms and legs are encased in the rough blue uniform. His hands were dark, swollen and enormous. His face is enormously fat, red and widespread, sitting squarely on the neck of his tunic with a clumsy weightiness that reminded of a sack of flour. The lower half of it is hidden by a violent red moustache which shot out from his skin far into the air like the antennae of some unusual animal. His cheeks are red and chubby and his eyes are nearly invisible, hidden from above by the obstruction of his tufted brows and from below by the fat foldings of his skin. His face is gross and far from beautiful but he had modified and assembled his various unpleasant features in some skilful way so that they expressed good nature, politeness and infinite patience. His voice is heavy and slightly muffled, reminding of a thick winter quilt. He turned slowly round, shifting his stance with leisurely and heavy majesty, In the front of his peaked official cap is an important-looking badge and over it in golden letters are the word sub inspector -Bhairon singh He lived in the barracks for more than 100 years
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KALI PRASAD
He has a dark face and hooky nose and masses of black curly hair. He is blue-jowled and black-jowled and looks as if he shaved twice a day. He has white enameled teeth, two rows of them arranged in the interior of his mouth. He is heavy-fleshed and gross in body like the sergeant but his face looks far more intelligent. It is unexpectedly lean and the eyes in it are penetrating and observant. If his face alone were in question he would look more like a poet than a policeman but the rest of his body looks anything but poetical. His voice is high, almost feminine, and he speaks with a delicate careful intonation. He lived in the barracks for more than 100 years.
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PYARELAL Sixty years old, he is a bluff red man in a burly (hefty) coat with twine binding his trousers at the knees. Instead of standing at the counter as he would in a public place, he goes to the wall, puts his arms akimbo (with hands on hips and elbow pointing outwards) and leans against it, balancing his weight on the point of one elbow.
SHAMA She is Devi’s girl friend.Not too young. After sixteen years she has grown old, very fat and very grey.
PRAJAPATI SUTAR (LAME HAMMER MAN) He is red-faced and strong-armed and limped around his work with enormous stiff strides His one leg is wooden
AWARA He has coloured stripes of high office on his chest but he is dressed in policeman’s blue and on his head he carries a policeman’s hat with a special badge of superior office glittering very brilliantly in it. He is very fat and circular, with legs and arms of the minimum, and his large bush of moustache is bristling with bad temper and selfindulgence. The sound his voice made is rough like coarse cardboard rubbed on sandpaper and it is clear that he is not pleased with himself or with other people.
He has great fat body in the uniform. The face at the top of it belonged to old Bhagchand. It was not as deathly and unchanging like last time. It was now red and gross as if gallons of hot thick blood had been pumped into it. The cheeks were bulging out like two ruddy globes marked here and there with straggles of purple discolouration. The eyes had been charged with unnatural life and glistened like beads in the lamplight. When he answered it was the voice of Bhagchand. His words come in thick friendly lumps from his face. His buttons are suspended straight before his face, tracing out the curvature of his great chest. He walked like a battleship, swinging his bulk ponderously away. Every two steps of his equaled six of a normal human being. He disappeared 25 years ago from the barracks.
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Awara
VEER BHADRA
Veer Bhadra
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SPACE DESIGN DESCRIPTIONS OF SETH BHAGCHANDS HOUSE The house appeared to be a fine roomy brick building of uncertain age, two storey high with a plain porch and eight or nine windows to the front of each floor. There is a iron gate and it open to the weed-tufted gravel drive. The hall-door was closed and although it was set far back in a very deep porch, the wind and rain had whipped a coating of gritty dust against the panels and deep into the crack where the door opened, showing that it had been shut for years. The window opens in to the deepest window-ledge. The room was thick with dust, musty and deserted of all furniture. Spiders had erected great stretchings of their web about the fireplace.
The dimensions of the place are most unusual. The ceiling seems extraodinarily high while the floor is so narrow.
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Narrow square steps
The Third Policeman’s House 47 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
VISUALIZING For the first page where Nachikatha as a boy age 16 entering the school lab I used full bleed to give a impression of long walk in the school corridor. There is a continuous background used in the panel while he is entering the lab. His distorted image appeared through the mutant embryo in the lab to signify the beginning of his decadence. The opposite page shows Devi’s encounter with the book ‘Golden Hour’ that book will ring each time it is opened. The shape of each panel frame is similar to a mega phone. The centre spread is used to explain Atpateshwer’s idea about the mirror and the reflection.
I broke the total script in to chapters. The first chapter begains with Nachiketha’s first sin in the school lab where he steals the book ‘ Golden Hour’ written by Attpatwernath: the unknown mad philosopher and scientist. It ends with Sethji’s murder. Nachiketha commited this final sin along with his cunning servent Devi singh. The rough draft of the chapter had been explained further. 48
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SCENE 21 EXT SCENE OF CRIME DUSK Everything is very still with no sound in their ears except the dripping of the trees.They hide teir bicycles. The lowering skies seems to conspire with them, coming down in a shroud of dreary mist to within a few yards of the wet road where they are waiting. Nachiketa is leaning miserably on his spade and Devi, his iron pump under his arm, is smoking his big beedi contentedly. The old Sethji is upon them almost before they realize there was anybody near. Nachiketa can not see Seth well in the dim light but glimpse a spent bloodless face peering from the top of the great coat which covered him from ear to ankle. Devi goes forward at once and pointing back along the road. DEVI SINGH
NACHIKETA (V.O.) याद नहीं मैंने कितनी बार मारा उसे.. बस मैं मारता गया मारता गया.. जब तक हाथ थक नहीं गया.. He throws the spade down and looks around for Devi. He is nowhere to be seen. He calls his name softly but he does not answer. He walks a little bit up the road and calls again. He jumps on the rising of a ditch and peers around EARTH IS TURNNING RED
लाला जी.. आपका पहिया उलटा घूम रहा है.. The old Seth turns his head to look and receives a blow in the back of the neck from Devi’s pump which knocks him clean off his feet and probably smashes his neckbone. Old Seth’s body, full-length in the mud,does not cry out. Nachiketa hears him say something softly in a conversational tone; SETH BHAGCHAND SONY हे राम ! Then he lay very still. Nachiketa watches the scene rather stupidly, still leaning on his spade. Devi is rummaging savagely at the fallen figure and then stands up. He has a black cash-box in his hand. He waves it in the air and roars at Nachiketa DEVI SINGH देखता क्या है.. खतम कर साले को.. Nachiketa goes forward mechanically, swings the spade over his shoulder and smashes the blade of it with all his strength against the protruding chin. Nachiketa hears the fabric of the skull crumple up crisply like an empty eggshell.
51 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID
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The murder sequence is one of the crucial moment in the story. In the page where Devi Singh and Nachiketha are spying on Sethji, Nachiketa is not sure of what exactly Devi is planing to do. He is almost in a trancelike state of mind. The dark clouds signifiy the evil thing about to happen. The panel where Devi Singh holds two spades near the door is more like a religious hypnotism. I cut in to the single leaf with a water drop falling to show the passage of time and the image of the fallen water drop prepares and gives a pre image of the murder.
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COVER
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THE FINAL
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Bibliography Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud Men of Tomorrow – Gerard jones The five c’s of Cinematography – Joseph V Marscell Even a Monkey can Draw Manga – Koji Aihara & Kentaro takekuma Manga Story-telling/showing (web) – Aarnoud Rommens The Film, a Psychological Study – Hugo Munsterberg Notes on Cinematography – Robert Bresson Drawing Action Comics – Easel Doesit Buddha – Osamu Tezuka Sin City – Frank Miller Watch Man – Alan Moore Sand Man – Neil Gaimen Gost World – Daniel Clownes City of Glass – graphic novel - adaptation by Paul Karasik & David Mazzucche based on Paul Auster’s original novel Wikipedia http://www.english.ufl.edu/imagetext/archives/v3_3/peeters/ http://leonardodesa.interdinamica.net/comics/lds/vb/Topffer.jpg http://www.metabunker.dk/wp-content/uploads/vieux_bois_64_t.gif http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Toepffer_Cryptogame_13.png http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/smc/journey/ref/summary.html THANKS Kamal Swaroop.
CONTACT Jayakrishnan PG Graphics, National Institute of Design, Paldi Ahmedabad - 380 007, Ph: 9998067501, cdsjaik@gmail.com
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59 Jayakrishnan Subramanian PG Graphic Design - NID